//------------------------------//
// 12- Jokes on You 
// Story: The Fox and the Filly 
// by FrostTheWolf 
//------------------------------//


The Fox and the Filly- Jokes on You




        “Can somepony please remind me as to why we’re out here in the Everfree again?” Scootaloo asked as she followed Sweetie Belle, Applebloom and Spike along the dirt road that lead out of Ponyville and into the Everfree forest. All three fillies had their saddlebags on hoof and Spike was holding onto what appeared to be a list as they walked through the entrance into the Everfree. “I mean, I get that we are helping out Spike and all that, but why exactly does he need to go into the Everfree of all places?”

        “Well, ones of the items on the list of things that Twilight asked for me to get is tea leaves,” the young dragon replied back to the pegasus. “And anytime that I was with Twilight before when she had to run errands, she always gets them from Zecora.”

        “Come on now Scootaloo. It won’t take that long,” Sweetie Belle insisted. “Why are you trying to rush? You got somewhere else to be?”

        “N-no! It’s nothing like that,” Scootaloo blushed a little. “I was just… Well, today’s supposed to be Rainbow’s day off from training with the Wonderbolts, so I was hoping that today she could give me a lesson or two on flying. Any other time I’ve asked, it’s always been because she’s either too busy or that Spitfire tired her out from practice. So I was hoping that today can be different.”

        “Well, if that’s the case, don’t let us hold you back,” Spike insisted, taking hold of the plastic bags that Scootaloo was holding onto in her saddlebag. “We can carry these for you.”

        “Spike’s right. If ya want to go find Rainbow, now's your chance.” Applebloom chimed in now. “Besides, we’re almost done here anyways.”

        “T-thanks girls! … And Spike. See you later.” Scootaloo corrected herself, before waving her hoof goodbye as she ran into Ponyville to go find her idol. For Sweetie Belle and the others though, this was also seen as a bit of a sigh of relief. Mostly because of the fact that before Scootaloo ran off, someone else wanted to get the chance to come out and stretch their legs for a little while.

        So, once they went into the Everfree, Applebloom and Spike both got their digivices out and pressed one of the buttons on it. Letting both Leona and Guilmon come out now as they looked back at their tamers. “Thanks, Applebloom-mon! That place was really uncomfortable.”

        “Sorry Guilmon, but unlike Sweetie Belle and Spike, Scootaloo doesn’t know about Digimon at all,” The earth pony replied back. “So if we had you come out when she was around, she would be scared out of her mind.”

        “That and we know that if we did let you two out in the middle of Ponyville, who knows what will happen,” Spike added, before turning to look back at Leona as the coronamon was coming to her senses now. Trying to make sense of where she was as the young dragon then asked her a question. “How are you feeling, Leona?”

        “Tired… where are we and why have you summoned me? I'm not granting any wishes today.” Leona grumbled as she wiped the sleep from her eyes, having just woken up as she was released from her digivice. “... hey wait, where is Rena? Wasn't I in bed with her?” she then added as she managed to quickly shake the last of the sleep from her mind.

        Sweetie Belle, at first, raised an eyebrow for a moment at the Coronamon’s random question. “No… Rena is helping Rarity at the boutique and last time, Spike had you in his digivice,” She explained, before Spike picked up on the second part of the answer. “Since the coast is clear, he and Applebloom let both you and Guilmon out so you don’t stay cramped inside your digivice. Besides, we’re almost done with Twilight’s list of errands to run, so you don’t have to deal with her today-”

        “TWILIGHT!? WHERE? I AM NOT GOING NEAR THAT MADMARE!” Leona shouted as she shot off into the forest on reflex, obviously having not been awake long enough for rational thought.

        “Shh!!!” Spike said, before beginning to chase after her. “Dang it… I was going to explain that she actually was not here.”

        “Well, we better find out where she went before she causes any more trouble-” It was around now that Sweetie Belle stopped moving. Using her hooves to hold Spike and Applebloom back and her magic to hold Guilmon back as well as she realized where Leona just landed. “Oh dear… that’s not good.”

        “It burns!!! Get it off me! Get it off!” They heard Leona shout before a whole swath of the bright blue flowers caught fire with a small shriek, the light of the flames blocking out wherever it was that Leona had landed.

        “Leona, stop doing that! It’s poison joke!!” Spike yelled, trying to get her attention. “If you squirm around in that, it’s only going to make things-”

        Then, the whole entire poison joke patch was lit ablaze as the dragon, unicorn, earth pony and digimon watched Leona burn the collection of flowers until there was nothing but ash. “-worse.”

        “M-maybe digimon aren’t affected by poison joke?” Sweetie Belle then suggested, before Applebloom herself decided to charm in.

        “Or maybe they’re affected by it more… Because when ah saw AJ and the others fall in the patch, they weren’t screaming their heads off or anything.” She pointed out, recalling what happened the last time she had a poison joke based encounter.

        “So wait… are you suggesting that they actually feel the effects that it has on their body and they feel the pain when changes happen?” Spike then asked, looking back to Leona now and feeling rather concerned for her. “Then how in the world are we supposed to help her?! They’re not just going to let us walk into the ponyville spa and let Leona soak in one of those herbal baths.”

        “Especially when trying to give her a bath was already hard enough.” Sweetie Belle added.

        “Not helping me here,” The dragon groaned, rushing over to Leona as she stumbled out of where the patch was and lying on the ground. “Leona, are you okay? Please, say something!!”

        “Did I… burn it all…?” She muttered before passing out, her voice sounding hoarse and very very distorted.

        “Yeah you did-” Sweetie Belle then spoke, before looking down at Leona’s body as she saw something begin to change. “Wait, what is happening?”

        At first it was hard to notice, but slowly Leona’s fur began to change color… becoming purple with white patches on her muzzle, belly, the tip of her tail, forearms and lower legs. But if that wasn't shocking enough, the flames that would always be seen burning from her forehead and the tip of her tail just strait out vanished like a candle being blown out. Leaving only a large red gemstone on her forehead. While this seemed to happen over the span of five minutes for the two fillies and two dragons…  for the unconscious Leona, it felt like an eternity. And sadly after that, the changes still had not stopped. If anything, they just slowed down as what looked like Leona’s bones, if digimon even had bones, began to shift and change size as well as shape. Her body morphing into a form that was almost similar to Guilmon.

        As this was happening, Spike’s digivice soon beeped as he heard something from it. “New rookie form recognized; Dorumon.”

        “Hunh… that’s new.” Spike added, before hearing some more specific details as to Leona’s transformation. But one thing really happened to catch their attention as the digivice was continuing to speak.

        “… Level: Rookie, Type: Beast, Age: Unknown, Gender: Male…”

        “Whoa there,” Applebloom soon spoke up as she looked back at Spike. “Ah thought that Leona was supposed to be a girl. Why did your digivice say she was a boy?”

        “I don’t know? Maybe it’s the effects of the poison joke…” Spike said, pressing a button on the digivice to have Leona be called back into it as he looked back at the girls. “Let’s go get those leaves from Zecora and hurry back to the boutique. Maybe Rena can help us find a way to reverse the effects.”




Meanwhile…

        “So Sweetie Belle and her friends are helping out Spike this afternoon?” Rena asked as she brought over the main sewing kit that Rarity needed so she can finish the new dress she was piecing together. The Renamon had offered to help her in Sweetie Belle’s place so she could be able to be with her friends, though she had no clue as to what exactly they were doing today. It was Sunday, so they didn’t need to go to school and Rena had already helped her partner finish all of her homework last night.

        “Indeed,” The unicorn replied back, using her levitation magic to grab hold of one of the spindles in the kit as she began to have a cyan colored string go through a needle she was holding with her magic. “While Twilight is meeting a couple of delegates from neighboring cities, Spike was asked to do a few things for her. So, in order to lend him a helping hoof, Sweetie and her friends decided to help him with the list that Twilight left for her.”

        That almost had Rena drop what she was holding as she looked back at the unicorn. “She seriously made an entire list? That just makes me think she’s more of a ‘Princess of Procrastination’ rather than Princess of Friendship if you ask me.”

        “Now now… Twilight is normally on top of things,” The unicorn responded, motioning with a hoof to set the sewing kit down on the table as she began to have the thread go through the fabric that she was beginning to piece together. “But since she’s been busy with helping me piece the boutique back together, a lot of essential tasks that she would normally be able to do Twilight hasn’t got the chance to complete those yet. Like getting groceries, apples from Applejack, ingredients from Zecora.”

        Rena had almost forgotten that both Twilight and Discord had played a rather big part in getting the Carousel Boutique back together after Sangloupmon had attacked Rarity in her own home. But there was one part that she wasn’t… really familiar with as the renamon looked back at the unicorn. “Who’s Zecora? I haven’t heard of that name before.”

        “She’s a Zebra who lives in the Everfree forest who’s an alchemist,” Rarity told her, continuing to stitch the fabrics together with her magic as she was speaking. “She helped us out a long while back when the six of us accidentally stumbled into Poison Joke a few years back. Now we come to her whenever we need any potions or advice in regards to what goes on in the Everfree.”

        However, it was shortly after the digimon was done processing what she just heard that Rena giggled a little at that, before looking back at Rarity. “You… seriously stumbled upon Poison joke?”        That… had Rarity stop her stitching as she set the fabric down on the couch, before looking back at Rena. Her expression from before was drastically different now as she glared directly at the fox digimon.

        “Yeah, what’s so funny about it? The ordeal that I went through was downright humiliating!”

        Yet, the kind of response that she heard… was honestly not one that Rarity anticipated at all. “Oh I figured… because the same thing happened to your mother a few months after we were partners,” At that moment, the Unicorn’s expression changed. When she was alive, her mother was not one to talk much about incidents that would be seen as rather… embarrassing or tell Sweetie and her secrets. In fact, the biggest secret that she kept from them was Rena until the day Sweetie Belle found her digivice. “There was a wild digimon in the Everfree that we needed to defeat, but just before we could defeat it, Pearl got knocked back into a patch of poison joke. Needless to say, she… did not like what happened next.”

        Curiosity began to set in for the unicorn as she looked back at Rena. “My word… what did happen?”

        ““Her fur stood up on end. Like if you startled Opal… however, it would never come back down,” To explain it a little bit better, Rena asked if Rarity could cast an electromagnetic spell on a crystal that she conjured with her right paw. Despite the odd request, the unicorn casted the spell and watched as the fur that was on Rena’s body began to stick up when she moved the crystal over it. “Think this… only that it was all over. Head, mane, tail, legs, everything… and it was thicker than a wool rug. Thankfully, we were able to wash it out with the right bath so she could be back to normal.”

        Rarity was a bit astonished by that, even after dismissing the spell. But before she could ask anymore questions, they both heard a knock on the door as the two of them looked at each other in confusion. “Now I wonder who that could be…”

        “Would you like me to get the door, Rarity?”

        “That’s kind of you Rena, but I think I got it.” The unicorn insisted as she opened the door with her levitation magic again. However, when she opened the door, both of them did not expect for Spike and Sweetie Belle to be outside. They knew that they were going to be spending the day with Applebloom and Scootaloo, but if they were honest with themselves, they did not expect them to come home so soon.

        That… and also both of them looked as if they were beyond relieved to be seeing them. “Thank Celestia you opened up…” Spike panted as he looked back to Rena. “We got a problem… can we come in?”

        “What kind of problem?” Rena then asked, before noticing something. “More importantly though, where are Scootaloo and Applebloom? I thought they were with you two.”

        “Scootaloo went to go find Rainbow Dash to see if she could get some flying lessons and Applebloom went back to Sweet Apple Acres with Guilmon,” Spike answered Rena’s second question as the two of them came inside. “However, the problem that we have is not something regarding them, but regarding this…”

        That was when Spike got out his digivice and pressed the button that would allow for Leona to come on out into the real world. However, instead of seeing Leona, Rena watched as a completely different digimon landed in the middle of the room. Fast asleep as the renamon looked back at Spike. “Spike, where’s Leona? Don’t tell me you tried changing partners-”

        “No, no! It’s nothing like that at all,” He insisted, before taking in a deep breath. “After Scootaloo left to go find Rainbow, Applebloom and I both let out partners out of our digivices in order to let them get some fresh air. However, when Leona asked what we were doing and heard about the errands we were running, she took off and crashed in the middle of a poison joke patch before setting it all on fire.”

        That… had Rena’s eyes widen a little. Not just because of the fact that Leona got herself caught up in poison joke, but because it actually had an effect on digimon. She did not know if poison joke could actually affect Digimon or not, but personally steered clear of it on the off chance it did. “And she… turned into a Dorumon?”

        “She did more than turn into one. She also’s a guy now,” Sweetie Belle abruptly said, before looking to Spike as he was facepalming himself with an open claw. “What? You know it’s true.”

        “Well, this isn’t any problem that a trip to the spa can’t fix! We can just have Aloe and Lotus do the same herbal bath they did for us-”

        “I’m sorry Rarity, but we already thought of that,” Spike countered Rarity before she could finish her sentence. “When we got to the spa, they were already closed for the day and I think one of the rules of the spa is that we can’t bring pets. I know that Leona isn’t exactly that… but they might mistake her for one considering the circumstances.”

        “And after trying to give her a bath on her first night here, it would be next to impossible to try and give her one now. Even if this one was one that would remove the poison joke.” Rena added on.

        “Maybe there can be an exception. I’ll go see if I can find Aloe and Lotus…” Before Rena could say anything, Rarity had already stepped out the door and left the three of them with the sleeping Dorumon.

        Leaving them with only one… question that needed to be answered. “So… how exactly are we going to wake her up?”

        That… had Spike look back at Sweetie Belle and Rena as he scratched his chin. “I… think I have one possible idea… but we’re going to have to hold her down.”

        At first, Sweetie Belle and Rena were not… exactly sure what Spike had in mind, but did so anyways. The unicorn used her magic to carefully grab hold of the Dorumon’s front legs and back while Rena held her paws on the back legs and tail. Spike himself had to hold onto Leona’s neck firmly with one arm, using the spare claw he had to do a countdown from three to one.

        At one, he moved to Leona’s ear and said the one thing that would always wake up Leona. “Twilight, I’m home!”

        Leonas eyes suddenly shot wide open, completely bloodshot as he awoke with a visible jerk… followed by something launching out of his throat and striking Spike in the gut, sending him flying across the room as the Dorumon began to buck around like a rabid boar that's had its legs tied together. “01000110 01101100 01100101 01100101! 01000110 01101100 01100101 01100101!!!”

        “Leona, calm down!!” Rena then said, using her knee to hold down her legs and her left paw to hold her head so that way she… no, he would look at her. “Leona, it’s us… No harms going to come to you. Please, just calm down.”

        However, her words were no good as the Dorumon kept squirming around. So instead, Rena decided to act. Bending her head down to Leona’s and kissing her as if she was performing CPR, hoping that this would somehow calm her down.

        Surprisingly it worked… albeit a little too effectively seeing as Leona immediately froze from the contact before slowly melting into the kiss as he then tried to return it. When he did, Rena took it for a moment, before placing a finger on his lips. “You okay now? You’re not going to go all ones and zeroes on me now, are you?”

        “Ones and zeroes…?” Leona asked as he slowly came to his senses. “Wait, where am I? Weren't we just burning a patch of poison joke? … WHAT HAPPENED TO MY VOICE!?”

        “To simplify things… One, you’re back at carousel boutique. Two, you were affected by poison joke as you were burning it. Three… well… you changed into another digimon and your a guy now.” Spike said, showing his digivice and Leona’s stats to him so he would see for himself. “You’ve also been out cold for the last ten minutes.”

        “... I need a drink…” Leona groaned, putting a paw to her forehead as she tried to process this.

        “I’ll go get some orange juice.” Sweetie Belle replied as she trotted over to the kitchen to get a glass for Leona.

        “Leona, this will only be temporary… Rarity’s trying to make arrangements so that way we can get you fixed up tomorrow, but… the only way to fix it involves one thing that you probably will not like… but you’re going to have to grin and bear it if you want to be back to normal.” Rena told Leona as the filly came back in with a glass of orange juice for the Dorumon… as well as adding a plastic straw for him since he was having difficulty picking it up with his small forearms.

        “...” Leona simply remained silent, sipping at the orange juice in a daze as he was unable to process his predicament.

        “Leona, we’re trying to get you a herbal bath tomorrow at the Ponyville Spa because that’s the only known cure for poison joke,” Rena explained to her simply. “I know that you aren’t exactly… well… open to baths, but you need to do this once if you’re going to be in your Coronamon state again… to be yourself again.”

        However, all Leona did was just keep drinking the glass of orange juice until it was finished. Making Rena scratch her chin and looking at both Spike and Sweetie Belle for a moment as she tried to think of why Leona was being so quiet right now. “Spike, Sweetie Belle… Let me keep an eye on… him until tomorrow so that way we can have this situation be resolved.”

        Both the dragon and the filly looked at one another, before simultaneously nodding their heads as Sweetie Belle soon spoke up. “Alright. We’ll let Rarity know that you’re keeping an eye on her- I mean him.” She said, before the two of them left both of the digimon alone and went to go find the seamstress.



Elsewhere

        In the skies close to Cloudsdale, a pair of pegasi were seen in the clouds. One was much younger than the other as the older one looked to be trying to teach them the basics of flying. Yet, what was unknown to them at the time was that someone else… was watching them.

        “You see that one over there? The little one?” A feminine sounding voice asked from behind a nearby cloud. “That filly knows the tamers who defeated Sangloupmon… Well, this is just perfect.”

        “Uh… M-ma’am? Are you sure you’re not just-” A second voice was heard, shortly before it sounded like they were hit with a rolled up newspaper. “Ow! Hey, what gives?!”

        “That’s ‘miss’ to you now, you little twerp,” The first voice snapped. “Get it right or else I will use you as my personal footstool. You got that?”

        “B-but ma- I mean miss… How do you plan on using that filly to try and beat those tamers? I mean, you’re not going to try and corrupt her now, are you?”

        “Are you stupid? That’s something that Phantomon would do,” The feminine voice shot back. “Besides, if anything, I would want to see what she knows first… and then, use her as a bargaining chip. Unlike Sangloupmon who revels in battle and Phantomon, who torments his victims and makes them betray their friends, I do things my own way… and the first part of that is to gather information.”

        “You sure…? Because they’re not there anymore, Lady Witchmon.” When the first voice peaked out, she soon realized that the two pegasi that she was watching were nowhere to be seen. Something that made her look at the rookie digimon that was her servant and glare at them venomously.

        “… You know, if I didn’t have a purpose for you, I would be turning you into pillowcase right now Tsukaimon. So consider yourself lucky.”



        “So, how did you enjoy your first lesson, Scoots?” Rainbow asked as they approached the door to her home in Cloudsdale.

        “That… was… awesome!” Scootaloo replied back, before jumping up to hug the pegasus that she saw as her idol as they trotted through the doors to Rainbow’s home. “Thank you so much, Rainbow!”

        “No problem, squirt,” The cyan pegasus giggled, before looking back at the orange filly and mentioning something else to her. “Though, not to sound like a complete buzzkill or anything, but you gotta make sure and clean up your room. It was a complete mess earlier in the day when I came to check on you this morning.”

        “Ugh, okay…” Scootaloo rolled her eyes as the filly trotted into her room, closing the door behind her with a hoof as she began to sort through all the things that were scattered on the floor. She also needed to make sure to make her bed, take out any dirty clothes that were in her room and other household chores as well.

        But it was as she was sorting through some of the things in her closet that something… caught her attention. It first happened when she was trying to close the door to her closet, only to realize that the corner of a cardboard box was preventing it from closing properly. “What the hay…?” She murmured, setting the clothes off to the side as she began to look through what was inside. There were several things in here that were from a few years ago, including old comic books, art supplies, and other strange items. But one thing that caught her attention was a small device that was the shape of her hoof as she pulled it out for closer inspection.

        “Hunh… is this one of those old school handheld games?” She asked herself. “Come to think of it, I did see that one colt with the pinwheel hat in our class hold something like this too. Maybe if I just…”

        The moment that Scootaloo pressed the button in the center of the device, it began to glow as a beam of light shot out a few seconds later. But that wasn’t the only thing that happened. Scootaloo also found herself staring directly at what appeared to be a purple dragon like creature that had bat like wings attached to its arms. There were parts of the creature that were colored yellow along with two stripes of red that went down it’s shoulders as it looked back towards Scootaloo. But even then… that was not what shocked her the most.

        That moment… was when the creature spoke… and said the name of her mother. “S-sky drifter? I-is that you?”




End Chapter 12